


Left Turn

by ChelleyPam



Category: Hidden Legacy Series - Ilona Andrews, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:28:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28229916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChelleyPam/pseuds/ChelleyPam
Summary: When fleeing to hide an infant Luke, Obi-Wan Kenobi took a left turn at Albuquerque
Relationships: Luke Skywalker/Arabella Baylor
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this is going. I should probably refrain from writing when drinking caramel Crown Royal

“Someone should squish him.”

Luke smiled, reaching over to rub his hand over his wife’s back. “That might not be wisest decision.”

Bella cocked her head in his direction. “You sure? We’re right here. I could hulk out, climb up the side of his palace, reach into his throne room and pinch his head off.” She made pinching motions in the direction of Emperor Palpatine’s head on the holovid.

“Even you have your limits, Sweetheart. I’d rather not have you slaughtered in the streets.” 

He turned off the feed and sat back, pulling her into his lap and pressing a kiss to her mouth. She returned it, arms wrapping around him. They remained like that for a long moment, just enjoying one another before she spoke again. “How did it go?”

“I got there and realized every possible way of spilling the beans was wrong. I settled for advising her to reach out to her father and tell him that Luke Skywalker had come to see her. Better she hear it from someone she knows than from a stranger. Here’s hoping he’s honest with her.”

“Then what?”

“I told her where she could find us. It’s in their hands now.”

Arabella rested her head on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay. And if she decides she doesn’t want you, she can fuck right off. We’ll take you. My family thinks you’re pretty neat.”

“When they’re not threatening to kill me.”

“Leon was just doing his protective male family member routine. He wouldn’t actually do it.”

“He would if I ever hurt you. I know him well enough to know that. And Bern said he’d make all my money disappear and fake enough evidence to have me imprisoned for human trafficking.”

Her head came up. “He did?” Luke nodded. “Way to go, Bern.” He pinched her hip and she giggled. “But it’s true. You’re always welcomed by House Baylor. You’re our family now.”

He kissed her again. Technically they were still on their honeymoon, their vows exchanged only two weeks before they’d left Earth. If she was going to follow him to a completely different galaxy, then he’d felt she should have the legal protections of a wife. They’d been flirting with the idea of marriage anyway. This trip had just accelerated things. 

The rest of the Baylor family hadn’t been thrilled with her leaving the planet, but they’d supported the decision once he’d explained why he wanted to take this trip. 

“While you were visiting the Senate building, I snooped around the city.”

Arabella on her own on an alien world was the stuff of nightmares. “Did you do any damage?”

“Only to our traveling funds.” She got up and went over to the galley area. “I’m so tired of rations and freeze dried meals. I tried out the markets and found some stuff for dinner. Even got them to give me directions of how to cook it.” She opened the slender fridge unit and started selecting items.

“What’s for dinner, then?”

“Something called Corellian buckwheat noodles and bantha steak, whatever the heck a bantha is.” She knew what it was. Ben’s data files from before contained information on all sorts of flora and fauna. If he recalled correctly, he’d said that bantha tasted a lot like beef, only sweeter. So... like buffalo he suspected.

“Sounds good.” 

“I thought so. You can help with dessert.” She set down a cutting board, a knife, a bowl and some purple fruits. “Here. Make yourself useful as well as ornamental.” Her smile was a teasing grin and he swatted her behind in answer before picking up the knife.

They put together a simple yet very welcomed hot, fresh meal. She’d gotten some sort of cheese and some spices to make a simple sauce that went well over the noodles and complemented the steak. When he asked her about it, she said one of the ladies at the market had clued her into a couple of ‘cook books’ she could download onto her flexi for reference. One was actually written with a small ship’s galley in mind for the frequent traveler.

They’d cleaned up their dishes and were about to snuggle up with the holonet for the daily news and some calming tea when the chime that would alert them to someone at the access door rang out. Luke called up the outside view and saw a slender woman in white standing there with a droid hovering behind her. 

“It’s Leia.”

“I guess she had that talk with her father.”

“Looks like it.” He got up and went to let her in.

Her eyes were red. She’d been crying. Still, she head her held up and offered him a smile, tremulous though it was. “Luke. I hope I’m not... I trust it isn’t too late in the evening...”

“We’re still up. Come on in.”

She walked up the ramp, the droid following her. “We?”

“Yeah.” He lead her towards the galley where Bella was folding up the towel she’d used to dry off the table. “Leia Organa, this is my wife, Arabella.”

She was surprised by that, but she accepted Bella’s offered hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“You, too. Please, call me ‘Bella’.”

Leia nodded, clearly not sure what to do or say. It was at odds with the strong, elegant young woman they’d seen on the holonet recordings of her speeches in the Senate. 

Bella seemed to understand. “You know what? I’m going to make that pot of tea, then I’m going to go and look over those recipes to decide what to make for us in the morning.”

“Oh, I don’t mean to impose...”

“No worry. I have two sisters and two biological-cousins-legally-brothers. I understand needing ‘family time’.” She ducked into the small galley to start making the tea while Luke invited her to sit down onto one of the soft couches in the lounge area.

“You’re... married.”

“I am. It surprised a lot of people. While it’s not odd for a young woman of twenty-two to get married, a man of means isn’t expected to do so until nearer to thirty. There were several who thought nineteen was too young. My in-laws included. And to some the bride being three years older seems a much bigger deal at my age than it would in another decade.” He shrugged. “But if she was going to agree to follow me all the way here, I wanted her to at least have the legal status of a wife so she would have ownership of my property and funds should anything happen to me.”

She nodded. “Sensible.” 

Luke studied her for a moment. “The conversation went that well, huh.”

“I’m... still trying to decide if I should be furious with my parents for not telling me any of it before or grateful to them for... keeping me from _him_.”

“I suppose that would be a lot to swallow. Ben had the luxury of being able to tell me the truth from pretty much the start. It wasn’t as though they’d be able to find me.”

“Where have you been? My father said that they’d reached out to your... our aunt and uncle, but you’d never arrived at Tatooine.”

“Ben found another option. Quite by accident, really.” He ran a hand through his hair, gathering his thoughts. “There’s a... tear, in the fabric of space itself. He stumbled across it on his way to Tatooine, but he says that when he did the Force told him to go through it. He went with it and it pushed us out somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“Another galaxy all together.” Luke shrugged. “It took him a bit to realize it, but none of the systems or star were familiar. He was afraid he’d messed up, but he found a single star system with one inhabited planet. Just our luck that it was a human species. Not as advanced as this galaxy was, and... not initially very trusting.”

“How so?”

“When we got there, they were still debating if there was other life in the universe. They only had proof of their own planet. They’d started in rocketry, had managed to put a man on their moon, launched satellites and probes, were starting the research to reach, explore and colonize the nearest planet to them and had started what would eventually become their holonet. Ben was met with some suspicion, but once the universal translator figured out their language and he could communicated, he was able to win them over. We were given refugee status and, since his ship and everything in it was his property, he was able to reverse engineer the tech and build quite a comfortable life for us there. It fast forwarded their own technological progress and in the past two decades they have progressed to building the first extra planetary colonies, hyperdrives and more.”

Leia shook her head in disbelief. “So... that’s where Kenobi hid you? Another galaxy? Did he come with you?”

“No, he’s back home. That ‘comfortable life’ is thanks to the company he built. Skynobi Industries.”

“Skynobi?”

“Yeah.” Luke gave a shrug. “The country we settled in has some... potentially problematic custody laws when it comes to orphaned children. They’re the reason why Bella’s cousins are legally her brothers. Her parents adopted them after their mother ran out. While the government knew I’d arrived with him in his ship, he wasn’t my actual parent and there wasn’t any paperwork to name him my legal guardian. Rather than deal with that headache all my life, he opted to accept the option to adopt me by their laws. When doing so, he didn’t really want to strip me of the name Skywalker, but keeping different names would be confusing to some. So he opted to combine the two names and change both of us to that one. He put together a sizable financial empire, one that I’ll take over some day, but leaving it without leadership would have been irresponsible. We anticipated up to three years out here.”

That made sense. A smart businessman wouldn’t leave his interests without guidance for that long. “And rather than expect Arabella to follow you to another galaxy for up to three years just as a shipmate, you opted to marry her so that she has legal say in cases where you may not be available.”

“Exactly. It was sooner than we had planned, not that we were actually talking marriage already at our age, but it would have at least been another two years or more. Her family runs a private investigation firm and she’s been helping her sister with that while she took time off after her baby was born. But I didn’t really want to wait that long. Well, Ben said he was fed up with me. I have been... anxious about finally getting to meet you one day.” 

Leia blinked down at her hands, before a wry smile twisted her lips. “I suspect I would have felt the same had anyone thought to tell me I had a twin.”

Bella came back out with a teapot and cups. “Let this steep for a few minutes.” She set the tray down onto the small table before picking up a mug. Luke peered at her.

“What’s that?”

“The last of the cocoa. I’ll be in the bedroom deciding the best way to gorge myself on local delicacies.”

Leia watched them exchange a gentle kiss before Bella vanished into another part of the ship. “She seems nice.”

“I think so.”

“How did the two of you meet?”

“A charity gala at the Houston Metropolitan Museum. It was to raise money for wounded soldiers who needed help getting their lives back together. Her brother—in-law, maternal grandmother and mother all served, so it’s a cause close to her heart. Ben felt it was important, too. He did it in memory of the people he’d served with in the Clone Wars.”

That sounded very much like something she could approve of. “And her family threatened to kill you?”

Luke shrugged it off. “Leon’s got a twisted sense of humor. He’d kill me if I hurt her, I’ve no doubt of that, but he knows I never would. Her sisters are scarier. Ben loves them. Especially Nevada, the oldest. He finds it funny how everyone clams up and gets real nervous when she enters a room.”

“What’s so scary about her?”

“She’s a Truth Seeker. If you lie to her or around her, she’ll know.” Luke poured tea for both of them. “Over a century before our arrival, their planet was hit by a highly contagious virus. It was killing millions and all the nations of their world scrambled to find a cure. What they found, quite by accident, was something they call the ‘Osiris Serum’. It didn’t stop the virus, it changed them. If you took the serum it could awaken abilities within you. Some people gained the ability to read minds, others to summon lightning or fire and various other talents.” The cups filled, he offered her sugar and cream, which she declined. “Of course it was also just as likely to kill you or warp you into some type of inhuman creature and then kill you, so not many were willing to risk it. It was given to soldiers to make the armies stronger. In countries where aristocracies were losing power the nobility took it to regain that power. The wealthy took it in hopes to give them an edge over their competitors. Then a world war broke out and the people of Earth learned the hard way how foolish it is to give normal men and women godlike powers. The serum was locked away and further use of it was forbidden. Only they found that it changed the people who took it and survived on the genetic level. Their children were born with the same abilities and it gave rise to the Houses that control a large portion of the wealth and power of today.”

“So it gave them control over the Force?”

Luke grimaced. “Not really. It’s not the same as what Ben does or what I do. The Houses are not sure how to see us, actually. The adoring fans that follow House Baylor were split over me and Bella. General wisdom is that mages marry other mages to ensure the power, so half of her adoring public thinks I am the wrong choice for her and the other half is all about storybook romance and true love.”

“Is she also a Truth Seeker?” That would be a useful gift to have in the Senate. 

“No, she’s a metamorphage. It’s a kind of shapeshifter. You’d really have to see her in action, it’s not easily explained, but she’s unlikely to do anything unless there’s trouble. The middle sister, Catalina, is a ‘Siren’. Rare gift. Before her there’d never been one officially registered, though there were rumors of it in a family in another country. Her magic makes people... love her? Adore her? Worship her? Sounds easy enough, but the longer they are exposed, the more obsessive they become. After a time they become desperate to stay with her, or to get a piece of her, like clothing or hair, even a finger. The previous rumors of others like her included a young woman who put herself on an island and lured groups of soldiers invading her home city to her. She drowned three companies of men before the survivors reached her and tore her to pieces in an effort to keep part of her with them.”

“That’s horrible!”

“It is. All that’s is from her father’s side of the gene pool. Her maternal line has things like pattern mages with a bent towards computers and technology, her grandmother was a mech mage who could do wonders with vehicles and crafts and the Magus Sagittarius gift which gives the mage unerring accuracy with weapons. My mother-in-law was a sniper in the military and Leon is death on legs. One shot, one kill. And he never misses. That’s why he did the whole ‘hurt my cousin and they’ll never find your body’ speech.”

For some reason that struck her as funny. 

“What about you? Did the Organa’s treat you well? Were you happy?”

Leia smiled into her tea. “Yes. Yes I am very happy with them. They’ve never treated me as anything less than their daughter, even though they didn’t give birth to me. Mother... she had so much trouble having a baby. She says I was a miracle, coming into their lives the way I did. I plan to follow in her footsteps one day. To be queen.”

“A lofty goal. Sounds like a headache.”

“It’s an honor to serve.”

“From what we were able to learn from the holonet, you’re pretty good at it. The youngest elected Senator ever.”

She felt her cheeks warm. “I was. Our mother, our real mother, likely could have been but she was a queen first. Naboo elects their queens, and they prefer young girls for the job. I think they believe they will be more caring than grown men and women.”

Luke arched a brow. “Teenage girls? Really? Have they ever met one?”

Her brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”

He bit his lip then shook his head. “Nothing. Maybe the kids here are different than on Earth. Forget I said anything.”

She was going to argue, but decided against it. She didn’t want to argue with him. Instead she took a breath and made a gesture to the droid. “I brought a medical droid. Father recommended that... I mean... it’s just that...”

“I get it. I do.” He started rolling up the sleeve of his shirt. “Some random guy shows up and claims to be your twin brother. You’re in a position of political authority. If politics here are as vicious as what I grew up with, I’d want to make sure of it myself.”

So he was going to be cooperative. “Thank you. I don’t know who else might have uncovered the truth, but it is better to be sure.”

He gave a sample without hesitation. She gave one as well. They drank their tea in silence as the droid processed them. 

_“There is a 99.99937% chance of probability that the two sample donors have the same parents, both mother and father.”_

Leia swallowed. “So.... my father is Darth Vader.” The words tasted like ashes in her mouth.

“Ben said I shouldn’t think of it that way. He said our father was Anakin Skywalker. Anakin was a Jedi Knight and a good man. He cared for his friends and considered the clones under his command as people when other Jedi just treated them like weapons. Our mother fell in love with and married Anakin Skywalker. She didn’t marry Darth Vader.”

“Yes, maybe I should think of it that way. Darth Vader is a butcher. A monster. I hate thinking that any part of him is in me.”

“Then our father was Anakin Skywalker, born into slavery on Tatooine, taken by the Jedi to Coruscant to study their ways and would be lauded for his wits and courage as he led his men into battle in defense of those who could not protect themselves.” He reached out and took her hand into his. “We don’t know what made him fall, not even Ben ever fully figured that out. He thinks the emperor was able to mislead him somehow, likely to do with our mother. We may never know the full truth of it. He often said that there was nothing left of his friend and that Vader was more machine than man after Palpatine was done with him. But there was good in him once, and I believe that was the man who fathered us, not the Sith.”

She wiped her tears away with her free hand and summoned a smile, weak though it was.

“So, any idea which one of us was born first?”

~***~

Junior Lieutenant Boron Ja’al stood uneasily in the antechamber of the castle. Mustafar was a hellish landscape, riddled with rivers of lava, and the black castle that was Lord Vader’s stronghold did little to soften the effect. He wondered, not for the first time, if he should have sent his findings by encrypted message rather than using his scant precious leave time to make this journey himself.

No, this was the right thing to do. He was doing the right thing.

He heard the Sith before he saw him. Vader was a large, hulking figure of a man in his black armor, and the mask that aided in his breathing was distinctive. His brothers had told him all about it. About that and how the room seemed to drop several degrees whenever Vader entered. It was true, even here on Mustafar.

“I do not appreciate interruptions, Junior Lieutenant.” The voice was deep and menacing. Boron swallowed and composed himself.

“My apologies, Lord Vader, but I came across some information that I felt it was imperative be brought to your attention.”

“And you could not send this to me via other channels.”

“I...I did not think it wise, sir. If it were to fall into... some might use this information against you, sir. I wasn’t comfortable taking the risk.” He offered the data chip. The Sith looked at it, but did not make a move towards it.

“What is it?”

Boron did not lower his hand. “I... I work in decryption, Lord Vader. One of the tasks assigned to my team is trying to break encryption of transmissions of people we suspect to be less than loyal to the empire. One of the data files I was given contained the personal com channels used by the Organas of Alderaan. This particular channel was for private communication between family members, specifically Senator Leia Organa and her parents.”

The black helmet tilted slightly as if in interest. “Did you find something to prove their treason?” He sounded almost gleeful at the prospect.

“Not... really, Lord Vader. Not treason against the Empire, at least. I... I uncovered a crime committed against you, personally. By Queen Breha and Viceroy Bail Organa.”

The Sith stood motionless for a protracted moment, then the data chip was jerked from his hand by an unseen force and flew across into Vader’s gloved one. He turned and stalked towards a panel set into a wall that opened upon his approach. The data chip was inserted into the proper port and an inlaid screen flickered to life. The screen was split. On one side was Senator Organa and on the other was her father, Viceroy Bail Organa. 

The senator was a beautiful woman, and very young. A member of the senate at the tender age of 18, the youngest member ever elected. She was slated to be the next Queen of Alderaan should Breha pass away or step down. 

Though given what he uncovered, that was unlikely to happen now.

 _”Leia, this is a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t expecting to here from you until the week was over.”_ Bail smiled at his daughter. It was common knowledge the princess was adopted, but her parents did not love her any less.

_”I wanted to call you about a meeting I had today. It was... strange.”_

_”Strange, how?”_

Leia frowned and shook her head. _”A young man came to see me today. He wasn’t from Alderaan, I don’t think. I’m not sure where he was from. He had asked to meet with me, but when our appointment came up, he said that everything he’d run through his head was wrong and instead told me I should talk to you about it. He said to tell you that ‘Luke Skywalker’ had come to see me and that I should ask you about him and General Kenobi.”_

The subtle sound of creaking leather crackled, barely detectable against the audio of the recording. Lord Vader had clenched his fists as he watched Bail’s face register surprise.

 _”Skywalker and Kenobi? I... I had assumed they died.”_. He ran a hand over his face. _”Was Kenobi with him?”_

_”No, he was alone.”_

_”What did he look like?”_

_”My age, I think. Blond hair. Blue eyes. About my height, so small for a man. Do you know him? Who is he?”_

The Viceroy was clearly struggling with the answer. The man took a deep breath, his expression a curious mix of relief and sorrow. _”He’s your brother. Your twin.”_

The shock on the senator’s face was clear. _”My brother? What do you mean? Father, I don’t understand.”_

_”It was felt that the two of you would be safer if you were separated. Your mother was furious with me when I told her that there had been two of you and I only brought you home, but what was left of the Jedi said the pair of you would be too easily discovered if you were kept together.”_

_”The Jedi. Father, why would you keep this from me?! What do the Jedi have to do with it?”_

Bail composed himself, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. _”Your mother, your birth mother, was a dear friend of mine. She died shortly after giving birth to you. The medics couldn’t tell why. They said it was as though she’d lost the will to live. Padme was a fighter all her life, but... everything that happened then was just too much for even her. She barely held on long enough for delivery. Losing your father was too much for her to bear. “_

_”What happened to him?”_

_”He fell.”_ Bail swallowed again. He looked to be in physical pain at having to speak of these things. _”Anakin Skywalker was a good man. A respected Jedi and General during the Clone Wars. His relationship with your mother was forbidden, the Jedi did not allow attachments or love, but they married in secret and kept their marriage from everyone. Even me. I suspected they had feelings for one another, anyone who saw them together would have been able to see it, but I didn’t even know they were husband and wife. I doubt they were the only ones. It is foolish to expect people to ignore their hearts and not have some listen to them anyway._

_”I don’t know what the Emperor promised him or told him. I don’t think anyone ever found out. But somehow he took that good man and twisted him into something dark and terrible. Somehow he took a man who had fought to keep people free and safe and turned him into a monster, and not even Padme could bring him back.”_

_”Did the Emperor have him killed?”_

_”No, that would have been kinder. Your father stopped being Anakin Skywalker and became Lord Vader.”_. Leia’s hand clapped over her mouth in reflex to stifle a scream. _”I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Sweetheart. And I was constantly afraid that he or Palpatine would read my thoughts and find out about you. The Jedi said you and Luke were both strong in the Force, and that if you were kept together it would be too easy for you to be noticed. We feared that Palpatine might have you killed to prevent you from weakening his hold on Vader or, worse, they would take you both and twist you into something monstrous. You shouldn’t have had to be parted, twins should be kept together, but it was for your own protection. Your mother and I couldn’t have children, and she’d always wanted a daughter, so I brought you home to us. Kenobi was to take Luke to Tatooine, Anakin had a step brother there, but they never arrived. Your mother insisted that we reach out to the family he was to be placed with, Anakin’s step brother and his wife, to try and convince them to give us Luke as well so we could raise you together in spite of what the Jedi wanted, but they never arrived at the Lars farm. I... I assumed the worst had happened. That Vader had caught up to Kenobi and killed him, though Luke never surfaced either.”_

The lighting recessed in the walls sparked and cracked. Ja’al thought he could hear the walls groaning as though under some great pressure.

_”Leia, it’s possible this is someone who somehow found out about the birth. You will need to test him to see if he truly is your brother. If he is... you cannot stay on Coruscant. Not together, not with the Emperor and his inquisitors there. The Jedi feared that proximity to each other would only amplify your presence in the Force. If that is true, it will make it easier for them to sense you. You can bring him here. Take an absence from the Senate to deal with matters at home. No one should question it.”_

_”I will. He told me where to find him. I’ll take a medic droid to run the test and go there tonight.”_

Bail offered his daughter a tremulous smile. _”I can’t believe Luke is still alive. I hope it is him. I wanted to take you both, we were more than able to take care of both of you. I... I do hope it is him. Be careful, Sweetheart. If he is your brother, bring him home.” ___

__The recording ended and only Lord Vader’s mechanical breathing filled the stillness._ _

__The groaning got louder and cracks began to form in the walls. Ja’al flinched as the comm panel sparked and whined._ _

__“Who else have you told of this?”_ _

__“No one, Lord Vader.”_ _

__The Sith’s helmet turned to him. “Why?”_ _

__He swallowed. “I... I am not the kind of man who will ever find himself in the 501st, but I have two brothers who are. My younger brother still serves with you. My elder brother.... he can no longer serve due to injuries sustained in the line of duty, but he would have died that day had you not led your men to victory. They speak of you. Many of the enlisted men do, and since my brothers are enlisted men I have had the opportunity to speak with them. They say you ask nothing of your men you would to do yourself. That you treat them like men and not fodder to be thrown into the grinder. They respect you. I have seen my fellow officers, and I don’t know of any that old that level of respect from the men who answer to them. Too many of them are the kind of people who would use this information against you if they could.”_ _

__Silence was less intimidating than the loud breathing that filled the room._ _

__“What else have you learned?”_ _

__“I... used some contacts I have to look for this Luke Skywalker. I wasn’t able to find him, at first, until I remembered the mention of General Kenobi. I wasn’t able to find a Luke Skywalker, but I was able to find a Luke Skynobi. He registered for a berth at a public dock on Coruscant. Senator Leia was logged as a visitor to that same dock on the evening of the recorded conversation.” Ja’al called the notes up on his flexi. “Luke Skynobi, owner of a ship called the Terran Maiden. He listed as a resident of Tatooine, but his papers were forgeries. Not horrible, good enough to pass a moderate inspection, but I was able to confirm they were fakes with a little digging. Only other crew member was an Arabella Skynobi, listed as his co-pilot and spouse. Her credentials are also forgeries. I don’t know where they’ve been, but they are not from Tatooine.”_ _

__He offered the flexi to Vader and it flew from his hand to the Sith’s._ _

__“How old was the recording?”_ _

__“It was two standard Galactic weeks at the time I was given it, and it took me a week and half to break the encryption. It is just four standard weeks now.”_ _

__“I assume that they are no longer on Coruscant.”_ _

__“No, Lord Vader. They departed the following day. And Senator Organa filed notice of her leave from the Senate and departed on her personal ship less than an hour afterwards.”_ _

__“Who knows you are here?”_ _

__“No one, My Lord. I took leave to make this trip. I am not expected back at my post for another four days.”_ _

__More mechanical breathing._ _

__The data chip flew out of the mangled comm unit and into the Sith’s hand. Vader turned away and walked back in the direction from whence he had arrived. “Report to the Executor immediately, Junior Lieutenant. Your new orders and assignment will be waiting for you there. You will tell no one of what you have learned.”_ _

__It took a moment to sink in. “Y...yes, Lord Vader. Thank you, Lord Vader.” The dark form was already gone by the time he choked out that last bit._ _

__He was being reassigned to the Executor, Vader’s personal Star Destroyer. That was not his intention when he’d come here, he only sought to repay Vader for saving his brother’s life by bringing this to his attention, but he would not question his change in fortunes._ _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia and the Skynobis have been having a nice holiday as the twins get to know one another. There’s just one more place they want to stop before the newlyweds start their trip back home.
> 
> Of course, that’s when everything decides to go to poop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am assuming most readers are Star Wars fans and may not have heard of Ilona Andrews or the Hidden Legacy Series. 
> 
> Please consider checking them out.
> 
> [The Ilona Andrews Blog](https://ilona-andrews.com/)

“What are those?”

Bella popped the little pill and chased it with some water. “Birth control.”

“We could probably get you an implant. It would be more convenient.”

She smiled at her sister-in-law. “It would if I were normal.” Leia frowned in confusion. “It’s the shape shifting thing. Implant, IUD, the ring, they all get dislodged and fall out when I shift. The pill is the most effective way to go for me, and even it is under question. The doctors aren’t really sure how the shifting affects my bio chemistry, so if I do have to shift, Luke and I will back it up with condoms for at least a week just to be sure.”

Leia didn’t appear to know how to respond to that. She just blinked.

They’d spent three weeks as guests on Alderaan, hosted by the royal family. Breha and Bail had been warm and welcoming, Breha letting down her noble bearing behind closed doors to shower Luke with the affection that she clearly thought should have been his for the past nineteen years. Afterwards they had said their farewells so that the trio could take a trip to Naboo and hunt down their maternal relatives.

“Do you and Luke plan to have children?”

“One day, but not before we get back to Earth. Prime births can be tricky.”

“Prime?”

“It’s a mage level thing.” Arabella started counting off on her fingers. “Nominal, average, notable, significant and prime. Significant and Prime are considered higher tier mages. Prime births usually mean a magically gifted child, which can mean peculiar things can happen. I was there when Nevada had her first child. It was like something out of nightmare. The kid got his father’s telekinesis and things were flying all around the room while she was trying to push. The whole room cracked, just a massive fissure in the ceiling and floor. For a few years after that I swore I’d never have kids.”

“But now you think you will?”

“I hadn’t met your brother then. I wouldn’t mind having his kids. But apparently I nearly killed my mother being born. I lodged myself in the birth canal, refusing to come out, then when they got me out I tried to strangle the doctor.”

Leia’s mouth fell open. Bella just shrugged as though ‘what can you do?’

“I... can understand why you would prefer to start a family with physicians that understand the risks.”

“Personally, I’m hoping our kids turn out like my mother and grandmother. More like Grandma Frida. Techies will always be able to find useful work. And it would be a good fit for Skynobi. Luke’s a genius with machines. He hates the business part of things, he’s learning it because he’ll need to run things one day, but he can make a machine sit up, lay down and roll over and beg.”

Leia didn’t always follow what her sister-in-law was saying, but she supposed that was a positive thing.

“Your parents seem really nice. I’m glad you were able to be placed with a family that loves you.”  
  
“Like your cousins did with you?”

“Definitely. Their mother was a bitch. I don’t think they even mourned her all that much when she ended up falling in with the wrong crowd and getting herself killed. Mom and Dad were a much better set of parents for them.”

“What are your parents like?”

“Mom’s great. She was a sniper in the Army. Her magic makes sure she never misses, only she was listed as missing in action presumed dead during a mission in Bosnia. They found her by pure chance. The enemy had her in a hole in the ground. When she was pulled out, her leg was all jacked up. She still has a permanent limp because of it, but she’s tough. She’s held together even when having to put up with us pack of brats.”

“And your father?”

Bella’s expression turned sad. “Passed away. Cancer. A pretty rare form. He knew he had it and knew he was terminal, so he hid it from us. Well, from everyone but Neva who is the sneaky sort and had read the letter from his doctor. Made her promise to keep her mouth shut about it. He didn’t have any magic. His life was pretty harsh, actually. His mother, Grandmother Victoria, was a prime Truth Seeker, but her family wasn’t very good at having kids. A lot of fertility issues. She tried several times and they all ended with miscarriages. So she used her position and money to bribe, threaten and cajole whomever she needed to. Found a guy who came from that family that claims it didn’t have any Sirens Luke told you about but had been excised. Paid him a lot of money for his sperm, though I think he would have been all right with it. I know who he is, and I suspect there’s more to that story that he’s not willing to tell. She already knew she couldn’t carry a baby to term, so she found the original Beast of Cologne. She lost her shit and went on a rampage. Took the military to bring her down. Everyone thought she was dead, but Primes don’t kill anyone they might be able to use. She was kept under sedation in a private hospital. Victoria bribed everyone she could to get to use her as a surrogate. My dad was the result. He never expressed any magic of his own, but he fathered the three of us and we all came out primes. Nevada got the Truth Seeking, Catalina came out a Siren and... well... we’re not sure how the metamorphage business crossed over since she was just a surrogate, but here I am. Magic can be freaky that way.”

“Your grandmother must have been happy.”

“Once she finally found us. She was a horrible mother. Bad enough that Dad ran away and hid under an assumed name. She never would have found us except some sick pervert with a taste for little girls got arrested and refused to tell the cops where his latest victim was. Nevada pulled it out of him and it made the news. Told Victoria exactly where to look. She started tracking us down and we countered her by registering to become a house. You have to have two living primes in three generations to qualify, and we more than did that. Once we were registered we were granted projections under the Emerging House law and she couldn’t touch us. She still tried, but we eventually got the better of her. Found evidence that linked her to this conspiracy to take over our home state and got her sent to prison. She’s still dangerous, and my sister Catalina has to deal with her, but she’s bound to kick the bucket sooner or later.”

She didn’t follow all that, either, but she thought Bella was hoping her Grandmother Victoria would pass away and leave them in peace. “So Luke and I aren’t the only one with a questionable relative.”

“Not even close. If we go by numbers, I’ve got you beat. I’ve got an aunt and a grandmother. You’ve just got a sperm donor.”

Luke came down the hallway with a jaunty step. “Another five hours in hyper space and we should come out at Tatooine. What kind of trouble are my two favorite ladies up to?” He dropped himself onto one of the couches, relaxing in a boneless way of someone who wasn’t used to always being watched. Leia envied him that level of comfort.

“I was just assuring your sister that you two aren’t the only ones with horrible family members.”

“Told her about Grannie Vick, huh?”

Arabella let out a snort of laughter. “Her face!”

Leia looked to Luke with confusion. He grinned. “She may be technically in prison, but it’s a cushy prison. More like a resort. And she has the wealth and power needed to get a day pass if she wants one. She came to our wedding and it was the first time we’d ever met. I’d heard all about her, though, so I just smiled and said ‘Pleased to meet you, Grannie Vick’. I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t been the groom she would have killed me. She certainly didn’t approve of the marriage. I’m not special enough.”

“What?” She felt incensed on her twin’s behalf at that. “You’re a trained Force user!”

“Ah, but the Force isn’t the same as the kind of things they do. There’s no guarantee that any children Bella and I have will have magic at all.”

“Catalina put her foot down about it, though. Nevada’s son is a prime and Lina landed Alessandro Segredo, the highest rated Antistasi prime on record. No one even knows all the stuff they can do, just like they don’t know what Lina can do. Victoria had strong armed Catalina into agreeing never to marry outside of the family, if she did marry her husband would have to join House Baylor and be a prime. At the time it was believed Alessandro was out of reach, because he was the heir to his family and nobility. They wouldn’t let him go. Turned out they’d excised him in secret to try and bring him into line. Their fancy family is flat broke. They’ve been bartering their magically gifted sons into marriages with heiresses for generations to keep their lifestyle up. He refused to be sold off like a prized stud and would rather make his own way in the world, and they booted him out for it.”

Luke grinned. “Now that was a hell of a wedding. His grandfather crashed it. He thought that Alessandro would come crawling back and fall into line to keep his title and position. It never crossed his mind that he’d be more than happy to marry a girl from a newly formed house with no fortune to her name instead. The old geezer forgot that his grandson was stronger than he was and that his soon-to-be brother-in-law got his reputation by leveling entire cities for the military. And when the dust cleared, everyone knew the truth about House Segredo.”

“I’m pretty sure that last part was Victoria’s doing.” Arabella was looking through her stash of teas. “Once she knew that Alessandro was available and wanted to marry Catalina, she wasn’t about to let that match get away. It’s probably the only thing the pair of them actually agreed upon.”

Luke nodded in agreement. “Do you think the Senator has already headed back to Coruscant?”

“I would if it were me, but Senator Naberrie is her own person. I can’t believe I never knew we were related.”

They’d just spent nearly two full weeks on Naboo visiting what was left of their mother’s family. Padme Amidala had been an idol of Leia’s throughout most of her childhood. A fascination her parents had encouraged. Now she knew why. Learning that the birth mother she had never known was one of the more brilliant minds ever in the Senate had been like a dream for her. And she had loved spending time at the family estate getting to know the Naberries. 

They hadn’t told their family about the connection between Anakin and Vader. It hadn’t surprised them that Padme had married her Jedi protector and had children by him, though they had been put out at her never trusting them with the knowledge. They did understand why it had been decided they be hidden. The Jedi had been branded traitors and were executed on sight. The children of a Jedi would be at risk. Leia was fairly certain that their cousins would not betray them to the Empire or the inquisitors.

“So your skill in politics is as much nature as it is nurture.” Bella made some tea for them. She had a stash of peppermint still from her home world and Leia found she quite liked it. “I wouldn’t have thought that’d be genetics.”

“The aptitude, perhaps, but I suspect it’s mostly the result of having been raised in the right environment.”

“So what’s your excuse, Blondie Bear?”

Luke gave a playful shove with a foot to Bella’s thigh as Leia sniggered into her tea. “I’m the techie of the family. Ben says that our father was a wizard with droids and machines. He built that protocol droid of Leia’s when he was nine.”

What? “Vader built my protocol droid?” Her voice went a little squeaky at the end.

“A nine-year-old kid named Anakin built your protocol droid. I seriously doubt he was a mass murdering jackass at that age. I don’t think I could have built a fully operational, bipedal droid at that age. He must have been a prodigy. I’m more than a little jealous.”

“Grandma Frida would have loved to get her hands on a kid like that. Would have kept him on the straight and narrow, too.” Luke nodded in agreement with his wife.

Leia tried to picture a nine-year-old Vader. It was hard to think of him as anything other than the massive figure all in black with the loud mechanical hiss of his breathing apparatus. But he had been a child, once. Had been some mother’s son. Had loved and married a woman who had served first as a queen then as a senator and who had been respected by her peers. He’d once been a Jedi and had been hailed as a hero of the Republic during the Clone Wars. 

“I wonder what happened to him.” She was staring at nothing. “Padme’s sister said it was obvious they loved one another. That he seemed kind and brave. How does a young man in love and happy turn into... that?”

“Ben says Palpatine was behind it, and he’d been working on him for a long time. Our father got tangled up in the Trade Federation’s invasion of Naboo, and Palpatine noticed him when he was still a child. He took an interest in Anakin during his time at the Temple and was always making an effort to speak with him.”

Leia frowned. “The Emperor? He’s evil, but what could he have done?”

“Ben says he’s a Sith Lord. A dark side Force user. The Jedi didn’t know about it until it was too late. He’d gotten his hooks into our father and pulled him down to be his apprentice. I suspect he used our mother to do it some way. Maybe threatened her, or made Anakin believe there was a threat to her. The dark side is... easier, but it corrupts. But you can do some pretty horrific things to protect the people you love. I would like to say I would always do the right thing, but if there was a threat to Bella or Ben, or you, I don’t know how long I could hold on to my principals.”

Leia was about to open her mouth in protest, but then remembered her parents. Would she be able to stand her ground if the threat was against Breha or Bail? Would she do the moral thing or would she pay almost any price to keep them safe?

“So Kenobi thinks that Palpatine got his claws into him when he was just a child and corrupted him.” It felt... right. What hope did an innocent child have against someone like Sheev Palpatine? The answer was ‘none’, obviously. The Jedi who fell in love with a senator and married her in secret had somehow become the Emperor’s enforcer and the galaxy’s biggest nightmare.

There was a part of her that felt sad for that little boy who got lost, swallowed up by the corruption from his master.

“So, the plan is to check in on Owen and Beru, transfer the lion’s share of the liquid capitol we brought with us to them and get you back to Imperial Center, which is a stupid name for a planet, by the way. Coruscant is way better.”

Leia had nearly choked when she had learned how much in precious metals the pair had brought with them. The _Maiden_ was designed with hidden compartments everywhere, in which they had stashed their wealth. She understood why. They had no way of known what the current currency was when they came here, but things like gold, silver and platinum always spend. They’d been picking up pieces of tech here and there, new things to pull apart and learn that they could introduce to their offerings back home, including a lot of samples of Bacta they hoped they’d be able to culture and grow, but they still had a lot of their physical capital left. Luke hadn’t known how long it would take them to find her and get in to see her, so they had prepared for as long as three years. Happy circumstances had allowed them to accomplish what they wanted to do in under six months. They could stay longer, of course, but given their responsibilities back home, the adult thing to do would be to return.

They were, however, going to see if they couldn’t offer the Lars family a chance to improve their lives. Leia’s family was wealthy as were the Naberries, but Owen was a moisture farmer on Tatooine. The wealth Luke and Bella could give him would give him the chance to escape Hutt space. Alderaan would welcome them. Naboo would be another pleasant location. Though there was all of known space filled with places that would be more welcoming to life than the desert of Tatooine. 

They were planning to offer the majority of their wealth to Owen and Beru, about two thirds after holding out some for fuel and supplies for their trip back home. The remaining portion, however, was being offered to Leia to use for the rebellion. It would be enough to purchase much needed medical supplies and food to last them a few years. And for Luke it seemed to be a simple amount to part with. Just how wealthy had Kenobi become in his time on this planet called ‘Earth’?

“Agreed.” Bella curled up next to Luke, tucking her legs under her. “Imperial Center sounds more like a building. It’s a crap name for a planet.”

“You won’t hear me disagreeing with you. Palpatine is nothing if not arrogant.”

“The racism is what gets me.” Bella frowned. “Or would it be specieism? Anyway, our planet could learn a few things.”

“How so?”

Luke grimaced. “There’s still quite a bit of racial tension on Earth, even though there’s only the one sentient race if you want to be logical about it. It mostly breaks down to differences in skin color and culture.”

“Hold overs from past times. Earth is a planet of hundreds of countries, cultures and languages. We’re all human, but we have differences. Throughout the past just about every culture has screwed up in their own way and committed atrocities. Whether they want to admit it or not. For example, everyone has at one time practiced slavery and everyone has at one time been enslaved. But most ignore their own history of doing it and just focus their anger on whomever practiced it against them, ignoring that the people who did so have been dead and gone for hundreds of years if not more and the current people living had nothing to do with it. I hate to admit it, but it may take actually seeing a non human sentient to bring them out of their funk.”

Leia understood that. “An ‘other’ they can unite against. The Empire does that. It promotes humans over non-humans and treats non-humans as threats.”

Bella nodded. “Exactly. I would like to think humanity on Earth was able to evolve without it, but nothing unites humans more than a common threat.”

“Ben says our arrival kicked up a storm for a bit. Some religious sects were not happy about proof of life on other worlds.”

“I bet the Star Trek fans loved it.” Bella grinned into her tea.

“Probably. Though our arrival did confirm to the governments of the world that there was a real potential of an off world threat if they weren’t willing to prepare for it. It has caused some unity, but there are still problems.”

“We’ve made progress, but not enough.” Bella rolled her eyes. “I mean, if the sudden rise of people able to summon fire and lightening to hurl against the general population wasn’t enough to bring about world unity, a single man with a baby from outer space wasn’t going to do the trick. Though the sudden influx of new tech helped. The improvements in transportation was very well received. It’s decreasing the production of greenhouse gases and pollutants that were pushing a rise in planetary temperatures. The hope is that we can eventually slow man made climate change to a stop and start reversing it.”

Leia nodded. This was the sort of thing she didn’t fully understand herself but had encountered. Sometimes in devastating ways. “It’s too bad that the Empire isn’t conscious of such things. They have grown more and more wasteful. Take their officers’ rations for example. They discourage them from eating solid food and instead provide a nutritional fluid meal replacement that digests more efficiently. However, the plant that they make it from leeches everything out of the soil and after harvest leaves the land useless for anything else. More than one agricultural planet has been left a wasteland because of it.”

“Now that’s just stupid.” Bella refilled her mug. “You’re going to run out of viable planets eventually. And not all planets can grow anything. Take Tatooine. Twin suns have reduced it to just a ball of rock and sand. I don’t know how anything survives there. Those poor krayt dragons.” Luke arched a brow at her. “What? They’re cute!”

“Honey, you need help.”

“Whatever. I’m hungry. Anyone else?”

She got up and threw together a quick and light snack of jogan fruit, a mild cheese and savory bread. Bella was having fun experiencing the different foods about the galaxy. She was fearless when it came to trying new things. She was pretty much fearless about everything. She found it amusing to watch her brother coax her down from doing something now and then, whether it was exploring a dodgy looking alley in a dangerous area or looking as though she was about to pick a fight with some burley non-human over potentially rude behavior. For a woman about the same height as her, she acted as though she had the strength of one hundred Wookies.

~***~

Luke said they had stopped at Tatooine before heading to Imperial Center as it was ‘on the way’ and they could spend a few days getting their bearings. They also needed to get the documents needed to fake citizenship for the Empire. Since Tatooine was in Hutt space, there had been no shortage of quality forgers they could hire for such a task.

They landed the _Maiden_ just outside the Lars’ farm. A weathered woman with blond hair and kind blue eyes came up from inside the earthen dome structure, a bright smile on her face as they disembarked. 

“Luke! Bella! I’m so glad you came back.” She hurried forward to hug them both before looking to Leia. She grew a bit pale. “You... you must be Leia. You look so much like your mother.”

“Yes, I am. I’m so sorry we never got to meet before now.”

“Oh, that’s all right, dear. It was to keep you safe. I’m your aunt, Beru.” She stepped forward and embraced Leia, hugging her firmly. “I remember when you’re father’s man came to ask us for Luke. We were devastated to learn Anakin had a son who had gone missing. You wouldn’t believe the relief we felt when he and Bella showed up.” She released her and stepped back.

“Is Uncle Owen out on the ridge?” Luke was helping Bella with some crates of supplies they’d picked up from the core worlds. Luxuries that would be insanely expensive out here, including medical supplies.

“He will have seen your approach. He’s likely already on his way back. Come in! Come in. I’ll make us some tea.”

Bella did the bulk of the heavy lifting while Luke used the Force to move things. The pair of them could put a warehouse loading crew to shame. Foodstuffs and medical supplies were taken inside while Luke levitated the crates with new gears, parts and tools to the shop building. Leia was the first one inside the Lars’ home behind Beru.

It was small and simple, but obviously a home. Luke said that it had belonged to Cliegg Lars before passing to Owen and his wife. Their grandmother and her husband were buried a little off from the main house. 

Their grandmother. Shmi. The slave woman who had conceived a child without a father, a child the Jedi believed had been created by the Force itself and with whom she had entrusted the Galaxy. Only to have him fall to evil. How would the galaxy have been shaped if she’d kept her son here with her?

At the very least there would not have been a Luke and Leia. Would their absence have been worth it? Without Vader, could Palpatine have accomplished as much as he had?

The tea had just finished steeping when Owen Lars came in. Their uncle was a gruff looking man, his skin sun tanned and worn to leather by the sands and wind. He smiled at them both, shaking Luke’s hand warmly before turning his attention to Leia.

“There you are. We were surprised to know Anakin had children at all, but though we thought Luke lost, we were grateful to learn you were placed with Queen Organa and her husband. We don’t get much in the way of news out here on the Rim, and the holo feed is unreliable. I had hoped the young senator from Alderaan was you.”

Though her own parents had welcomed Luke so easily, and their mother’s family had been overjoyed to know them, she hadn’t known how Anakin’s step-brother would react. Luke had told her it was his understanding that Owen and Beru had only met their father once, when he’d come back because the Force had sent him visions that his mother was in danger, and that couldn’t have been for more than a day or three. “Thank you for welcoming us to your home.”

“I don’t remember my birth mother. Shmi Skywalker was the woman who raised me. I was happy when father freed her and married her so she could be my mother in truth. She never treated me as anything less than her son.”

Of course. Just like Breha and Bail had never treated her as anything less than their daughter. Luke had always known that Kenobi wasn’t his father, but she could tell from how he spoke of him she knew that her brother loved him as though he was. Family wasn’t dictated just by blood. It was also who you made it.

Bella helped Beru in the kitchen, eager to learn something new when it came to food. Luke grinned and confided to her that his wife was a pretty good cook if you could keep her focused on the task, but at home she tended to get distracted by holo calls or something playing on the holonet, so her sister Catalina usually saw to the food. Having her away from her usual distractions was allowing her to broaden her culinary skills.

After dinner they retired to what served as their family room. Leia answered questions about her childhood, as they had interrogated Luke on his the first time he was here. Alderaan was nothing like Tatooine. Her home was beautiful and vibrant, where Tatooine was rolling sands and rock. She couldn’t think of Luke growing up here. He’d said that Earth was a lot like Alderaan in some ways, though it did have deserts as well. He’d been raised in some place called California, though he had relocated to Houston, Texas. According to him there was some push back against it socially because of the differences in taxes between the two areas, as Texas as more ‘business friendly’, but it was easier to move part of their headquarters to Houston where they already had facilities that worked with local industries than it would be for House Baylor if they took one of their lead investigators away from them. He said that Northern California was green and mountainous, where Houston was flatter and boasted different flora, but each had their charm. 

“Uncle Owen, I was wondering if I could buy a couple of your vaporators of if you knew where I could. I’d like to take them back with me. Something like that could be useful in places like more arid regions back home. There are a lot of places that have a hard time getting enough clean water.”

“I need all of mine and could use a few more, but you could probably pick some up at Mos Eisley. There might be a couple of Toche Station, but Eisley would be a better bet.”

“How many more do you need?”

“Now don’t you go doing that, son.” Owen gave him a stern look. “You don’t need to be looking to giving us handouts.”

“Owen.” Beru gave her husband a stern look of her own.

“It’s not a hand out if it’s family. Bella and I will be heading back home after taking Leia back to Coruscant, anyway. We won’t need all we brought with us and it’s already been accounted for in the budgets. We were planning to split it between the two fo you, anyway.”

“Or you could take this opportunity to relocate,”everyone turned to Leia, “if you wanted to. I’m sure someone with your technical knowledge would be welcome on Alderaan. I would love to have you working with me on Imperial Center, even. You can help the other senators understand what the people here on the Rim face. So many of them have lived in comfort all their lives and don’t realize what the other regions are like.”

Owen frowned. “I don’t know about all that.” He didn’t completely dismiss the idea, though. 

“It might be a wiser decision than taking the funds from Luke directly. This is not a safe area of space. If word got out that you had significant wealth on your farm, you could have problems from the... less savory citizens of Tatooine.”

Her brother’s brows went up. “Didn’t think of that. Or, if you’re feeling more adventurous, you could come with me and Bella. Strike out to a whole new galaxy. It worked for me. And the US has a little of everything. If deserts are your thing, we could find you a place in Arizona. If you’d rather spend the rest of your days on at a lakeside or by the sea, we could do that, too.”

“Oh,” Bella craned her neck up to look at Luke. “There’s my place at the Baylor compound. I won’t be using it anymore. It’s by the pool and the pond isn’t that far away. That’d give them their own space but have them close enough to people they can trust while they settle in.” He nodded to her in affirmation.

“And, you’d be invaluable to Skynobi in adapting the vaporator tech and teaching people how to use it. It’s not going to be hard to pull water out of Houston’s air, it’s humid, but we’d be developing it to use in the deserts and other places with water scarcity issues.”

Leia frowned. “I thought you said Earth was nearly three quarters water.”

“It is, but most of it’s oceans which is salt water. Desalination is still expensive and doing too much could negatively impact the oceans themselves. Fresh water is harder to find in some places.” That made sense. “Oh, we should have taken a stop at Mon Cala. Might have found some good stuff there as far as sea bed farming and aquatic tech. Or just had a lovely time.”

“We have time.” Bella considered it. “We could do it after dropping your sister off.”

“Honeymoon detour?”

She grinned at him in response.

“Please, you two, keep the open affection to tolerable levels?” Leia kept her voice dry as Owen and Beru laughed at the pair.

“We need to find you a sweetheart, Sis.”

“Careful,” Owen interjected dryly. “Newlyweds always think the single people around them should be as happy as they are.”

“I don’t have time for a sweetheart. My duties take up too much of my life.”

“All work and no play makes Leia a dull girl.” Bella did a move where she kicked her legs up and managed a flip over the top of the couch she was seated on to land on her feet behind it. “I’m thirsty. Anyone else?” Only Luke and she went off to get them both something.

Beru looked at Owen. They seemed to have an entire conversation just between the two of them. Her parents did that sometimes. It must be from years of marriage. “We’ll talk about it. It’s not as though there’s anything really holding the two of us here. It’s just been lack of resources that has prevented us from leaving. With the water taxes the Hutts levy it’s nearly impossible to get ahead.”

Leia smiled. “I think either of us would be happy to have you.”

Luke grinned. “I’ll arm wrestle you for it.” She rolled her eyes at him.

~***~

“Pocket money?”

“Check.”

“Second, secret pocket money?”

“Check.”

“Sunscreen.”

“That’s you, not me.”

“Right. Kiss?”

“Always.” Bella gave her hubby a smooch which turned into another one, followed by a third that lingered until Leia cleared her throat. “I can’t help it. Your brother’s so tasty.” That earned her an amused head shake before the three of them left the _Maiden_ and went to the shop where Owen’s speeder was kept. He’d told them they could use it for their trip into Mos Eisley as their ship would draw too much attention. Something that flashy would draw the criminal sort of attention and although they could take care of themselves, the fall out of their doing so would be noticed.

She wished she could get into a good, energetic fight. She felt so antsy lately. She needed a brawl. Maybe some walls to punch. Or some vehicles to throw.

“Do you know how to drive one of these?”

Luke looked over the speeder and nodded. “The controls are pretty much the same as what we use on Earth. Speeders are more common than not now. Pretty much the only vehicles that still use ground transport or the classics. Nothing new gets made with tires anymore.”

She saw Leia’s questioning look and shrugged. “It was a gradual shift. My mother and grandmother say you would not have wanted to give anyone a flying car right out of the gate. Some people took longer to master speeders without causing havoc.”

“In the end we opted to adapt them all with their own droid like intelligence and the ability to override manual controls if a collision was imminent. They’ll even pilot themselves.”

Bella sighed. “That’s my favorite feature. Sometimes after a really long case, I’m so tired. It’s nice to just tell Baby to take me home then lean back and catch a nap.”

“Baby?”

“That’s what she named her speeder.” Luke shook his head and she punched him in the arm.

“You named yours ‘Pecan Logarithm’. Nerd.”

“You love me.”

“Yeah, I kinda do.”

Owen laughed as Leia took a seat in the back. “Please tell me the two of you aren’t going to do this all day.”

She grinned at her sister-in-law as she hopped into the passenger seat. “No promises.”

“Try to stay out of trouble. Mos Eisley can be a rough place.”

Arabella grinned as Luke assured his uncle they would be on their best behavior. Maybe she’d get a fight after all. A girl could hope.

The journey to Mos Eisley was enchanting. Sand. Sand. Oh, and look, sand. And not a single krayt dragon to make things interesting. “Do you think we could get a baby krayt dragon?” Luke gave her a look. “For Matilda!”

“We are not taking home a krayt dragon.”

“Who’s Matilda?”

“Matilda Harrison. She’s a prime level theriomancer, and animal mage. Her father works for House Baylor and we’ve known her since she was five. He hired us to find out who murdered his wife and then came to work for us after the case was solved. And she would _love_ a krayt dragon.”

Luke shook his head. “No. Your sisters can thank me for this later.”

“Spoil sport. Can you imagine how useful one of those things would be during an attack?”

“I’ve married a lunatic.”

She snorted. “You knew that before you said your vows. Too late to cry about it now.”

“No desire to cry.”

“You know, you two were cute at first. Now you’re getting more than a little sickening. I think this is worse than when my parents would get affectionate in front of me.”

“Sorry, not sorry. I am _so_ looking forward to doing this in front of my cousin Leon. He’s the only one of us still single.”

Luke laughed. “That won’t last for long if Alessandro’s sister has any say in it. She was practically stalking him during our reception.”

“Oh! Imagine the kids those two would make. Natural born super assassins!”

“I think the rest of the world would like to avoid that.”

“The rest of the world needs to live a little.”

Leia surprised her by joining. “Wouldn’t natural born super assassins be a hindrance to living?”

“Nah, they’d be like Alessandro was before he fell head over heels for my sister and settled down.”

“What was he like?”

“He was a super assassin who only hunted down and killed other assassins.”

“That’s useful. Do you think he might be willing to move to this galaxy? I suspect he would be quite popular for personal security.”

“And leave his wife and son? Doubtful. Lina’s the head of our house. She pretty much has to stay put.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

Mos Eisley reminded her of some Middle Eastern town out of old stories. The buildings were mostly domed instead of square, but the overall feel was the same. If you ignored all the different types of aliens.

That had been another part of this trip she’d loved. Leon was going to be so jealous when she got home to show him all the footage she’d captured of the various places they’d gone. He’d tried his best to convince them to bring him along ‘for added security’ and it eventually took Mom to shut him down. A huge science fiction and fantasy geek, he’d longed to travel to this galaxy and see everything. He’d probably get his chance one day. Leia would still be here, and likely Owen and Beru along with the Naberries. Luke would want to visit them all again one day. They could let Leon tag along then.

She helped Leia attach the translator to the belt of her clothes. It was something Skynobi had come up with. They were popular on Earth because you could download the languages you needed and use them to speak to the natives of any country on Earth. There was a stand alone unit version and an app version people could use with their smart phones or wearable PDA glasses. They’d brought the stand alone versions since they would be somewhat out of their carrier coverage here. Their versions were programmed with various languages not available on Earth, such as Galactic Basic, Binary, Huttese, Rodese, High Galactic Basic, Jawaese, Tuskan and Twi’leki. Ben had explained to her that it wasn’t uncommon for people to be able to understand a multitude of languages but not be able to speak them because the physical, biological structures needed to do so were specific to the species that spoke it. It went the other way as well, with those species able to understand Basic, but not be able to speak it. The translators didn’t have every language likely spoken on Tatooine, there was no real way to know what species you might run into here, but the ones they had should be able to get them through most conversations.

They did fine the vaporators. New ones were pricey, but well within their budget. New ones would be better for pulling apart and copying back home. Luke negotiated a purchase of three for them to take and another five for Uncle Owen, asking that they be held at the shop until they’d finished the rest of their day. They promised to be back for them before they would close for the day. 

Continuing on they visited multiple vendors, considering everything from local textiles and foodstuffs to local types of pottery and different types of droids. Ben had arrived with an astromech, and they had used it as a start to create everything from the droid like cores of speeders and aircraft to the assistant droids many businessmen used to help keep their offices running smoothly. Luke was fascinated by 3PO, but not just because it was the droid his father had built as a child, but because of the overall flexibility of his usefulness. He found a couple of scuffed and well-worn protocol droids in a junk shop, only one of which was functioning in any capacity, and got them for a decent price. The shop’s assistant was dispatched to carry them to where their speeder was docked as they weren’t nearly as expensive as eight shiny new vaporators,

The mid day meal was at a small cafe and was made up of Tatooine Terrine, simple but soft breads made from a fibrous root vegetable that had been imported in from a more verdant world and bantha milk that was blue in color and had an oddly tropical taste to it. After that, Bella broke off from her husband and Leia to go poking around for something that might make her hubby a nice gift. Leia wanted to see more of Mos Eisley so she could continue to build her mental list of things the core worlds could be doing better to help support these further flung areas that were too often neglected. Bella suspected that Leia was working even in her sleep. She reminded her of Catalina that way. The pair of them would be a nightmare if they ever were to get together.

She found herself wandering into a shop that seemed to cater mostly to the entertainers in the city. Especially the dancing girls. Was it racist to refer to them all as ‘girls’ when they weren’t all human? Did it matter?

She found herself drawn to an outfit that would fit tight and low on the hips with a brief, asymmetrical skirt that would be just above mid thigh at the shortest point. It was coupled with a bra top that would closely hug and enhance the bust. And, bonus, it was green, which was Luke’s favorite color. He’d lose his shit if she were to wear this for him. The fabric wasn’t too thin and it had tiny discs chipped from what looked like a thin, delicate mineral reminiscent of thin pieces of mica so that it would shimmer as you moved. 

Someone spoke to her in Huttese and her translator chirped in response. “I have shoes that would compliment that as well if you are interested.”

Bella turned her head and smiled at the grizzle woman with her gap tooth smile. Live was hard for these people. “Yes, thank you. I would like that.”

The local had flicked her eyes down to the unit on her waist in surprise, but seemed to accept it with a nod when she spoke to her directly in Basic. “This way.”

The shoes were akin to ‘gladiator’ sandals, with the bottoms a bit more flexible and soft leather. She found a pair that fit her and made sure that the outfit did as well. The cups of the top were a bit snug for her, but not so much she couldn’t make use of the extra plump in her cleavage, but the band needed to be take in an inch because she was smaller around. The adjustments were quick and she went back with the proprietress to her counter to pay for her purchase. 

“You don’t look like a dancer for the Hutts.”

“It’s for my husband.”

The woman cackled. “Lucky man.”

“He’ll certainly think so.”

“Smart. You treat him like that, he won’t go bad on you.”

“That is the idea.”

“You keep dancing. He will stay. I still dance for my Mahko. He stays.” She was withered and haggard looking, but her grandmother told her beauty never truly faded when you were in love. No matter how old you got or if your hair and teeth were all gone. Bella hoped she and Luke had that when they were as old as Grandma Frida. 

She noticed when the woman’s eyes went from amused to fearful. She was looking behind her. Bella pulled her magic to her, taking note of the rainbow of colors in her mind as someone spoke from behind her. “Arabella Skynobi?”

“Just a moment, please.” She fished out two of the slim ingots of gold from her primary pouch, the equivalent of about a quarter ounce each if weighed back home but the standard unit for such things here, and far more than what the outfit and shoes were worth. The woman flicked down to the pieces then looked back up at her, her expression terrified. 

The jackass didn’t wait. “We need you to come with us, please.”

She turned around, the bundle with her shoes and dancing costume tucked under her arm. “Why?”

The one in front was an officer of some sort, she guessed. He was dressed in a pressed grey uniform with what looked like Jolly Ranchers on the place she’d expect medals to be. “Please do not make this difficult.” There were two Storm Troopers behind him, each carrying a blaster.

“I don’t wish to, but I am confused as to why you are asking me to do so. I don’t know you. I’m not from Mos Eisley originally, so if I’ve made some faux pas, I do apologize.” She knew they wouldn’t know what a ‘faux pas’ was, but she was beyond caring. “Is this a non-human species only establishment or something?”

The man, he reminded her a little of a weasel, squared his shoulders. “Arabella Skynobi, we have orders to secure you and bring you in for questioning. If you continue to resist, we will use force.”

He thought _this_ was resisting. She gave him the kind of smile reserved for small children and idiots as she reached for the dark red thread of her magic amidst the rainbow and let it settle over her. The shape of her other self filled her mind, eager for what was to come. “Any chance I could get the name of the person who issued that order? I truly have no clue why you’d be sent for me, but maybe that could shed some light on things.”

The officer jerked his chin up a quarter inch, all haughty and superior. “The orders come from Lord Vader himself, so it would be best to come along.” 

She was afraid of that. Arabella held up a single finger. “Just a second.” She turned back to the woman who was cringing back from the counter, looking at her with pleading eyes. Bella reached into the pocket seven into the bodice of her shirt and pulled out the second pouch. She’d gone through most of what was in the first pouch today, they had been a bit spend happy, but this one was full. She dropped it onto the counter and pushed out towards her. The lady looked at it and then up at her. “For the damages.”

She dropped the parcel under her arm, grabbed a heavy case to the left of the counter, picked it up and hurled it at the troopers. It crashed into them sending them flying like bowling pins. The officer jumped in shock, too surprised to move as she grabbed up a metal pole that worked as a point to secure a hanging garment from. It was heavy, some variant of iron, and he watched in further shock as she took hold of it and started to bend it even as she moved towards it. He was reaching for his sidearm even as she wrapped it around him with a tortured screech of metal, turning it into a body-sized cuff to pin his arms to his sides. 

“Give Lord Vader my regards. Sorry we had to miss him.” She picked up the officer and tossed him outside into the street before she snatched up the blaster rifles before the troopers could reclaim them now that they’d gotten out from under the case and were getting back to their feet. They froze and watched as she held one in each hand, then crushed them without any visible strain. After that, she gave them her best psycho smile and let a bit of growl into her voice. “ **Run.** ”

They ran.

Bella sighed, turned around to grab her parcel and took off, digging her communicator out of her hip pocket.

~***~

The communicator in Luke’s pocket chirped to life and Arabella’s voice came through in a language she didn’t know. The translator at her waist chirped in response. “Unknown language.” Whatever it was, it wasn’t programmed into the unit.

Luke pulled out his comm and spoke into in the same language Bella had used. His brow furrowed, eyes darkening. He said something else and ended the link. “We need to get off the streets.” His voice was tense and low.

“What is it?” His expression told her it was bad. “What did she say?”

“Imperials just tried to take her in. She managed to get them to tell her that our father has put out an order to detain us. Well, her at least, but it’s unlikely I’m not included in that as well. Probably you, too.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she took care of it. I told her to make some ruckus and get us a distraction. Should draw most security off in her direction while we find another way out of here. Can’t risk the speeder if they followed us to Mos Eisley.” 

The ducked into a cantina. She didn’t care for the look of the patrons, but they couldn’t be choosy at the moment. Luke scanned it quickly before guiding her towards a table in the corner. Two Harches were seated there, looking up as they drew closer. Luke raised his hand and waved it before his face while saying in a low, barely audible voice, “You’ve enjoyed your time but now you have to leave.”

The pair got up, dropping some credits onto the table to pay their tab and leaving the table empty. The twins slid into it. 

“Leia, try to keep an eye out while I check on Owen and Beru. Order some drinks if you have to.”

She nodded and did so, getting a red dwarf for Luke and a Cassandra sunrise for herself, giving the waitress who came to clear the previous guests’ glasses and take the credits a generous tip as she did so. Luke’s eyes were closed, but he’d put his hand to his forehead as though warding off a headache so it didn’t look too out of place. The Jedi were gone, their reputation maligned, but she supposed he was using the Force to figure out things. After a long moment she saw him clench his fist and barely hold himself back from slamming it onto the table. “What?”

“They’re at the farm, too. Owen and Beru are... gone.”

Dead. He meant dead. They’d been so close to getting them off this barren rock! “How? It’s... it’s got to be about me.” She swallowed, keeping her voice barely a whisper. “They’ve suspected me, but they’ve never had proof. It must have stirred them up when I sent my ship back to Imperial Center without me. You must have been tagged because you were seen with me. Luke, I’m so sorry.”

“We can’t know that’s what caused this. But we can’t go back to the _Maiden_.” He pulled out his comm , something flatter and wider than the usual tiny cylinder, and activated the screen. His thumbs flew over it. 

“What are you doing?”

“Initiating the self destruct protocol in the ship’s mainframe. A little something we contracted Bern to write for us. Well, he’d already written it, but we paid him for it. It will start clearing and re-writing over the data files, starting with the navigational charts and anything else that could lead them to the rift and Earth, until nothing can be recovered. We opted to go that route rather than rig the ship to explode. Less chance of collateral damage that way.”

Of course. Vader would confiscate the ship and if they didn’t destroy the data then he could use it to find Luke and Ben. That was if they didn’t get Luke out of here to begin with. And she could understand the reluctance to turn the ship into a bomb. Innocents could get caught in a blast. She more than understood the desire to avoid such things.

“What now?”

“Now, we find a way off this planet.” He looked around. “Someone in this joint has to have a ship they’d be willing to hire out.”

Their drinks arrived and Leia thanked the girl while Luke examined the patrons as surreptitiously as one could manage. She’d foregone the traditional white of royalty, deciding to dress more casually while spending time with her brother. She drew less attention that way. The two of them could be any pair of young people stopping for a drink, though they were a bit too young and fresh faced for this crowd. Something more than one person noticed. Leia could feel the weight of stares on her. She noticed Luke got a few himself, including from the serving girl who hovered a bit too long at his shoulder when stopping to check to see if they needed anything else at the moment.

She summoned ever lesson at secrecy and espionage her father had ever taught her. Don’t ever appear nervous. Never let them think you’re off your game. Always look as though you belong exactly where you are, though granted that wasn’t particularly easy at the moment when she and Luke looked like two farm kids who’d never been to town by themselves before. “What kind of distraction are we waiting for?”

“The noisy kind. Don’t worry. We’ll know. Everyone will know.”

“I know you said she has... a gift, but how much can she really do?”

Her brother gave her a feral grin. “You’d really have to see it to believe it.”

A man who smelled as though he hadn’t seen a shower in a couple of weeks and whose breath could peel the paint from the walls bumped into her side of the table, his smile a leer. “You look like you could use someone more exciting than this kid.”

She grimaced and edged away as the man put a grimy hand on her shoulder. “I’m not looking for any company. We’re just taking a break from the day.”

“Now, don’t be like that sweetheart. Names Gorgo. What’s yours.”

Leia sensed more than saw that Luke was slicing the silver cylinder he kept hidden in the concealed pocket of his pants into his hands. She’d only seen him ignite it once, at her father’s request. It had been Anakin Skywalker’s light saber before he’d been... lost. Kenobi had taken it after he’d defeated him on Mustafar and had given it to Luke. They didn’t have a source for kyber crystals in their galaxy, not that they had found yet, so there had been no way for him to build one of his own. And to wasn’t as though they could get a crystal now. Most of the places you could find one were under Imperial control as they harvested them for their own projects, and other places were rather dangerous. Luke and Bella had decided against going for any of them as they weren’t a priority of their visit.

Her brother looked up at the man. “She’s already got company. Please leave.” She felt the little _push_ he’d added to the words, but the man must have been too drunk for it to take any real affect, because he only paused before snarling at him.

“Come back when you’ve actually gotta beard to shave, kid.” He didn’t notice the walking carpet lumbering up behind him until a massive, hairy paw landed on his shoulder with a growl.

“Your right, pal.” A human male with a drink in one hand and his other resting on the blaster at his hip swaggered up next to the Wookiee. “Chewie says the lady clearly isn’t interested. You’re too drunk to do anything anyway. How about you leave these kids alone and go sleep it off?”

Gorgo jerked away from the Wookiee and glared at the man. “Mind your own business!”

Chewie gave another sound of irritation.

“See, funny thing about Wookiees. They can get irrationally overprotective over those they see as younglings, and since they live for... well, ever from what I can tell, their definition of ‘youngling’ can be pretty broad. Hell, he probably still thinks I’m one. Give over. She’s too young for you anyway, and I’d rather not have to pay to clean up the blood after he rips your arms out of their sockets.”

Chewie gave a chuckle that was terrifying. The drunk gave an audible swallow and stumbled away, leaving their surprise rescuers still standing at their table.

“I’m guessing you two are family, because you’re not acting like sweethearts and friends would at least think to fake it in a place like this.”

Leia felt her cheeks warm. Why hadn’t they thought to at least... hold hands or something?

Luke gave a wry smile. “Siblings. I’m Luke, this is Leia.”

“Name’s Han, this is Chewie.”

“Buy you a refill?”

“I never turn down a free whiskey.” 

Leia moved closer to Luke, allowing Han to slide into the seat. Chewie remained standing. They placed themselves for a quick exit if need be.

“You two should have at least smudged some dirt on your faces before coming into this place. You stick out and your clothes practically scream money.”

He had a point. Luke nodded in agreement. “It was a last minute decision. We needed a place to think.”

“That I can understand.” He smirked up at the server when she came around again. “Corellian Whiskey. The kids buying.” When she was gone again. “Fall into trouble? Get on the wrong side of Jabba?”

“No. Find ourselves without a ship at the moment. Need to find a way off Tatooine.”

“Really. Well, I have a ship, but I need to secure a cargo so I can actually make a trip profitable.”

“Understandable.” Luke seemed to study the man across for him silently with that odd, inscrutable look that made him look wise beyond his years sometimes. Leia suspected it was another Force thing. He’d offered to teach her some of it, but she declined because it could make her more easily detectable by the Inquisitors or the Emperor. She was surprised, however, when he pressed one of the money pouches into her hand. It was heavy, so it was the backup one he carried so that he didn’t look like he was carrying all the money in the galaxy. She gave him a quiet look to ask ‘are you sure’ and he nodded. Leia passed the bag and set it against Han’s leg.

The man frowned, reached out and hefted the bag into his hand. His other hand went under the table and he opened it, looking at the gold chits inside. He looked back up with a raised brow at Luke. “That’s a big help.”

Leia decided to trust her brother in this. “And double that when we get to our destination.”

“Which is?”

“Alderaan.”

“Perhaps.” She looked at her brother. “You’ll need to send some comms first, to test the waters. We may need to change the destination.”

Because if this was about her, then they could already have gone after her parents. Ice formed in Leia’s gut and she felt as though she might be sick. All her carefully schooled exterior cracked for a long moment before she recovered herself.

Han leaned forward, looking as he was about to say something, but Chewie made a series of low, firm sounds. A scowl crossed his face and his jaw clenched, but he met his partner’s eyes for a long moment then gave a half shrug. “Sounds like you may be in trouble, so we’ll take the job. Two passengers?”

In the distance, somewhere outside, there was a loud roar. “Three. We’ll have to pick the other one up. She should be easy to find.” There was a loud crash form somewhere far off. After a moment they could hear a shift in the crowd outside. 

Han frowned and looked towards the entrance. “What the hell is going on out there?”

Luke smiled. “That would be our distraction. We should probably go now.” He took some chits out of his other pouch and set them on the table, more than enough to cover their untouched drinks. Chewie moved before them and the crowd parted easily for the Wookiee. Leia could see how he’d be useful to have along.

When they got out into the street, the people were running if they were ducking inside their dwellings. Over the tops of the buildings Leia saw something out of a nightmare. A giant beast, easily sixty feet tall, with shaggy black fur and hands ending in black claws. It had black horns that curved down to frame it’s face like a protective shield and a mouth filled with teeth the size of boulders. It was swinging what looked like a freight speeder in one hand, roaring out in challenge. 

It couldn’t be. “Is that....?”

Luke laughed. “Yep.” 

Han gaped at the creature then looked at Luke. “Friend of yours?” 

“Yeah, but don’t worry. She shrinks. Let’s go.”

Fortunately the flow of the crowd was in the direction they needed to go, so no one noticed them as they made their way to the docking bays. Leia skidded to a stop when she got a look at their transport. “That’s your ship?”

“She may not look like much, but she has it where it counts, Sweetheart.” Luke jumped up onto some machinery with an inhuman grace, scrabbling up so he could peer out the top. “Your brother has some moves.”

“Yeah, he’s full of surprises like that. Can you see her?”

“I see her. Pretty sure they don’t have enough to do her any real damage.” He still sounded tense as he jumped back down. “We’ll have to swing around low on the other side of town to pick her up. I hope your ramp can be down when the ship is up.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want that thing treating up the _Falcon_.”

“She won’t. I promise. She isn’t the kind to wreck her own ride. We’ll be fine.”

Chewie made some noises and Han sighed. “It was your idea to help them. Get her prepped for take off.”

Luke came over and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “She’s going to need something to cover up with. See if you can find a blanket or something? I’m gonna reach out to her and let her know what to expect.” She nodded and hurried onto the ship to see what she could find.

It didn’t take long for the Falcon to lift off. Han took them up before swinging around and heading towards the other side of the town as directed. Luke was helping him with orientation while Chewie was with her to man the ramp controls. She held the blanket she’d found close to her chest as they came around. Han took up an angle from the scene of the chaos and she could see even more of the creature. It was obvious she was taking care to avoid bystanders, mostly doing property damage and roaring loudly to scare people, though she didn’t refrain as much from Imperial personnel who had converged on the scene.

Chewie let out an uncertain sound. 

“It’ll be all right. She’s not as scary as she looks.” Though now she understood why Bella always acted as though she could take on anything. Did her brother know she could do this before he married her?

As though responding to something only she could hear, the creature turned their way and started to run. Even from up where they were Leia could hear the thunderous pounding of her massive feet and see dust shake from the buildings below. Han kept the _Falcon_ high enough to be out of range of a strong blaster bolt but it was still maybe only twice as high as she was tall. Eventually she cleared the town, people behind her seeming to try and decide if they should pursue or not. Chewie gave a worried growl as the creature took a running jump towards them.

Faster than Leia could process, the massive, shaggy beast shrunk, the momentum of the jump sending the small, naked form of her sister-in-law flying through the opening before taking a roll along the floor to thump into the durasteel wall with an “Oooph!”

“Raise the ramp!” She hurried to Bella. There were streaks of what looked like purple blood on her skin. She wrapped the blanket around her. “Are you okay?”

“I needed that. I’ve had to behave myself since we took off to come here. Don’t worry, I was careful, though I wish I could be there when that guy tries to explain how the bar got wrapped around him.” She saw the Wookiee behind Leia and grinned. “Hi! I’m Bella.” Chewie made a confused sound, tilting his head to one side. “Sorry, even if I hadn’t lost my translator we didn’t download Shyriiwook into them.”

“I think our pilot can help translate.” She helped Bella to her feet and they went up to the cockpit where Luke and Han were discussing the Imperial Star Destroyer orbiting the planet.

“Don’t worry. I can shake it.”

Bella moved up behind Luke. “Shouldn’t we loop back to the farm?” Han looked over and did a double take at the blanket clad blonde as Luke put an arm about her waist.

“No point. They’re gone.” 

Bella frowned, looking at him. “Then we go back.”

“It won’t help.”

“But if those assholes are still there I can squash them all into jelly!” She pulled away from Luke, glaring.

“I know. I feel the same way, but it won’t bring them back. I sent the destruct command to wipe the mainframe. We have to consider the ship lost.”

Bella sat down in one of the second pair of seats. “We were so close to getting them off this rock. Even if they didn’t want to come with us, Leia could have made sure they had a better life than scrounging for water here.” The ship, their belonging and all the things they had gathered to take back with them didn’t seem to cross their minds.

“I know, babe. I know.”

“Hey, kid, switch with Chewie and prepare to go into light speed.” The comm chimed, signaling an incoming hail, like from the star destroyer, but Han ignored it to concentrate on his calculations. Just when the tie fighters started to pour out of the ship, the _Falcon_ went into light speed, leaving the star destroyer behind.

~***~

Boron Ja’al, now Senior Lieutenant Boron Ja’al, moved from his shuttle to the elegantly designed ship currently guarded by the storm troopers. The _Terran Maiden_ , a curious name, was a beautiful vessel. He shouldered his kit and walked up the ramp to the inside.

Everything was efficiently designed but done in warm, inviting colors. This was a private ship for a wealthy man’s personal use. There were personal touches as well. It was meant to be a home away from home when you traveled. He found what he assumed was a guest berth, likely the one used by Princess Leia given the presence of a few garments of purest white and the high quality cloth expected for a noblewoman of Alderaan. A larger room was likely the one used by Luke and his spouse, the bed large enough for two and personal clothing for both a man and a woman. 

He made his way to the cockpit and frowned at the rapid action of the lights on the console. He set his kit into the pilot’s seat and pulled it open to pull out your cable he needed to connect the ship’s computer to his own. The design was not wholly familiar to him and it took to him a moment to find the port, but he did manage. It didn’t take him long to see the problem and bite off a curse. After that, he set his fingers to flying as he tried to simultaneously learn how to actually work with the system and stop the mainframe from deleting itself 

He kept his fingers moving, his eyes glued to his work. He vaguely remembered telling someone to get out, but eventually the words made it thru to him. “Sir, we are getting reports of a creature attacking Mos Eisley.”

“Is it in any way related to the Skynobis or the Princess?”

“Not that has been confirmed.”

“Then ignore it. Our primary goal is to secure them, alive and with as few injuries as possible.”

“Yes, Sir.”

He continued his work. It took time but he did eventually isolate and stop the program that was destroying the data. There was a lot of damage, many files corrupted. He would have to learn the system and how it wrote and stored information before he could start to try and rebuild it. In its current state, he couldn’t even get the engines started.

Ja’al rose, his legs having gone numb from his having knelt onto them for so long, using the pilot’s seat as a make shift desk. He stomped some feeling back into them before walking out of the ship. “Commander, report.”

A trooper with a shoulder flag to denote he was in charge hurried to him. “No sign of anyone else in the house, Sir. The shop shows signs that a speeder is kept there. There was a report from Mos Eisley that Arabella Skynobi was spotted there, so we believe they took the speeder to the town.”

He stiffened. “Do we have Arabella?”

“No sir. She got away. They are trying to cut the officer who found her free now.”

“Cut him free?”

“Yes sir, though... I think the report they sent in must have been garbled. It sounded as though they said she threw a display case at them, then picked up a solid metal pole and bent it around the officer before crushing the blaster rifles of the two men with him with her bare hands.”

_What?_ “Any sign of Luke Skynobi or Leia Organa?”

“Not that we have found, Sir.”

_Kriff_. “I want to speak to the man as soon as possible. What else do we know?”

“Everything became confused after that creature showed up. It did kill some of our men who got in its way.”

“I trust it’s been taken care of.”

The trooper hesitated. “It disappeared, Sir.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yes, Sir. According to reports it caught sight of a freighter taking off and chased after it, then jumped and... vanished.”

He frowned. “That makes no sense. How big was this thing?”

“Reports range from fifty to eighty feet.”

Ja’al stared at him for a long moment. “That makes even less sense.” He sighed. “Gather all the information and recordings you can from Mos Eisley and have it sent to me. And contact the Executor for a recovery team. The ship’s engines are currently disabled and I want it taken back with us. Put it in Lord Vader’s hangar bay. No one enters it other than myself until Lord Vader returns.”

“Yes, Sir.”

~***~

Han, they’d learned his last name was Solo, had dug out a spare pare of pants and a shirt for Bella to wear. She had to take some spare rope and use it as a belt to keep the pants from falling down and she could almost wear the shirt as a dress, but it was better than a blanket.

Luke watched his sister from the other side of the area that acted as both galley and lounge. The tension and fear in her was growing stronger with each attempt to reach out to someone. Bella was curled into his side, worrying her bottom lip as they waited. 

“Well, you can stop worrying about that ship. It’s long behind us.” Han pretty much swaggered in as he was speaking. “Should be at Alderaan in 96 hours.”

His sister bit back a sob. 

“Well, don’t everyone thank me at once.”

Luke shook his head. “Leia? What do we have?”

She took a breath to steel herself. “My parents have been detained and are being held in their palace. My ship on Imperial Center has been seized and my staff detained. According to the contacts I could reach, none of it appears to be by official warrants or orders. He seems to be doing this on his own.”

“Well, that would seem to indicate which way he’s coming from.”

“But... how? You two don’t know anyone here. None of our family would have said anything.”

“Hacker.” Everyone looked at Bella even as Luke nodded. She shrugged. “Someone must have been listening in on your comms. Bern and Bug do stuff like that all the time.”

“She’s right. Someone must have gotten hold of your communication with your father the day I came to your office.”

His sister blanched. “If they broke our encryption, they would have nearly anything on us. We’re always careful what we say just in case, but that entire conversation... we discussed everything. He was telling me I had a twin brother I never knew about. He told me about our parents! He used their real names!”

Solo was getting tense. “Okay, as the captain of this ship and everyone’s ride, I think I need to know why you’re all getting spooked.”

Luke drew in a breath as he made his calculations. “Our birth parents were lost to us when we were born, but our father was a Jedi Knight and our mother was a politician who was not Palpatine’s ally. Their friends felt that we would be safer if we were separated at birth and taken elsewhere. Leia was give to Queen Breha and Viceroy Bail Organa on Alderaan and I was taken elsewhere and raised in complete secrecy.” He sighed. “And, arguably, this is all my fault because unlike Leia I’ve always known I had a sister out there somewhere and I wanted to meet her. Bella and I decided to use our wedding trip to do so.”

Han blinked at him, then at Leia. “You’re Alderaan’s _princess_?” She nodded. “Okay, so, that’s not what I expected today. It sounded like someone’s not using official channels to hunt you down, Who’s coming after you?”

“Lord Vader. The Emperor’s enforcer, though I have a suspicion the emperor doesn’t know he’s doing this. It would be a lot more open.”

Bella frowned. “Imperial troops tried to take me in and they killed Owen and Beru. That seems pretty open.”

“Think on galactic terms. Tatooine is on the outer rim, practically nowhere. It’d be like killing some hikers out in the middle of one of the larger national parks. The bodies could be there for weeks, if not months, before they were found. Don’t file any official paperwork, don’t commit anything to data storage, and he could probably do it. Like all those rumors about small town sheriffs keeping their own little kingdoms. They can sometimes go for decades before anyone notices it.”

Leia nodded. “And as much as most of the officers may hate Vader, the enlisted men practically worship him. Our sources inside the Imperial navy say that the rank and file troops see being assigned to the Executor or to the 501st as a badge of honor. He is known to kill people for the smallest screw ups, anything he sees as incompetence or a lack of loyalty. On the other hand, unlike most officers he doesn’t shy away from entering the battlefield himself. They respect him for that. There would be those who would help him keep this under wraps.”

Solo let out a long, slow whistle. “Okay, then. I’m guessing we’re not going to proceed to Alderaan?”

Luke looked at his sister. “It’s your call. You want us to go in there and try to get them out, we’ll give it shot, but I don’t like our chances.”

He could feel Bella’s irritation through the Force. She was the kind to rush head first into the fray. His wife had yet to find anything that could beat her and it gave her a fearlessness and false sense of invulnerability that made him nervous at times. And they were still figuring out this whole ‘married couple team’ thing. “What would your parents want?”

Leia looked at her, eyes shining with tears she was trying not to shed. She moved her eyes to him and he could feel her heart breaking. Like Bella, she wanted to fly off to her parents’ rescue. To pull them out of the palace and put them into hiding. But she knew it wasn’t that simple. The royal couple of Alderaan couldn’t just... disappear.

“They....” she swallowed and her head fell forward. “They would want met to be safe.” Their was a crack in her voice at the end.

He hated seeing her like this. They hadn’t known one another long, but he felt... whole with her around. They’d been conceived, gestated and were born all at the same time, two halves of a whole, and neither had really known what was missing until they’d come together. It was like what he felt that night at the gala when he’d bumped into, quite literally, a cute blond in a blue silk dress and a sweet Texan accent, eyes sparkling like she knew a secret no one else did. Since she worked as a PI, she probably did.

“Okay. Captain Solo, this ship is not as wide as mine was, but can you tell me how tall she is?”

Han scratched his chin. “A little shy of 82 feet. Why?”

He looked to his wife. “She’ll fit. Easily. The _Maiden_ was a large as you could get and safely pass through.”

“What about Chewie?”

“He might make some folks nervous, but between your people and mine I’m sure we can keep the labs geeks off of him.”

Han frowned. “What are the two of you talking about?”

Luke met his eyes. “We need to change our destination. Only the destination is going to be somewhere you’ve never heard of, and you’ll likely need to stay there a while. I’ll compensate you, I’ll double what we were already going to pay you including the first payment you’ve already been given, and I’ll pay for all your needs while you’re with us as my guest.”

“What’s the problem with Chewie?”

He winced. “The world where I grew up... they hadn’t had proof of life on other planets before we arrived, and they’ve never seen a non-human sentient before. They’d have nothing to compare him to.”

He felt Bella’s giggle. “What about Big Foot?”

“Nothing real that they can compare him to, then. Cryptids don’t count.” He offered Han a smile. “I know it’s an inconvenience, but I will make it worth your while.”

“How long are we talking about.” He detected that Solo was suspicious, but that he also wasn’t opposed to getting away. The man worked as a smuggler, so he could have a reason to want to lay low. Luke could definitely offer him that. “We planned to be in this area up to three years, but I doubt that long. Could be at least one, though.”

“A full year out of circulation? I’d have to rebuild some of my contacts when I come back. Five times what we agreed to.”

Leia choked? “Five?!”

“Three.”

“Four.”

Luke paused a moment. “Four.”

“And you still provide all essentials while we’re your ‘guests’.”

“Of course, That never came off the table.”

Solo nodded and stood up. “Okay, then. Where are we headed?”

Bella flung her arms out and sang, in a quite passable voice, “A whole new world!”

Luke creased his brows at his wife. “Disney? Really?”

“Can you think of anything else that fits?”

At the moment, he really couldn’t.


End file.
